Breeders, owners, and caregivers of animals which can be companions, such as dogs, cats, horses, farm, food, or zoo animals, and wildlife, have a need to understand their physical and biological attributes, genetic makeup, heritable disease, and disorder background, and longevity.
Substantial investments in time, effort and financial resources are made by the breeders, owners, and caregivers of these animals, particularly purebred animals, to characterize their health state and predict their morbidity, mortality and longevity. Resources are separately directed to obtaining information about their genetic background. There is also a need to conduct periodic comprehensive health assessments of animals.
The probability that an individual animal will develop a specific health-related condition in its lifetime is a product of complex interactions between its genetic makeup, environmental influences including diet, and agents of disease (e.g., chemical, physical, or biological) that it encounters. Perhaps the best indicator of overall health of an individual animal or breed is longevity.
The physical attributes, and other descriptive and health assessment information is generally termed in this application as the phenotypic information. Genetic disorder information is termed in this application as the genotypic information. Generally, these are two distinct and differing sets of information.